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Monday, 1 May 2017

Programme Notes: Schubert piano works

Four Impromptus, (Op. 90), D. 899 ―Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

These 4 impromptus were composed in 1827 (a year before
Schubert's untimely death), and published the same year; the first half of a
set of 8. In that year Schubert composed, besides these exquisite short piano
pieces, yet another failed opera (The
Count of Gleichen), a superb German Mass, the E flat piano trio and the
sombre song cycle "A Winter Journey".
A year of great happiness and sadness; a torch bearer at Beethoven's funeral,
letters from 3 publishers asking to publish his compositions, a holiday in
Upper Austria (said by Hutchings to be "perhaps the most happy time
Schubert had ever known outside Vienna, or in it"). The first Impromptu, in C minor, is
a set of variations on two themes; both slow. It ends peacefully in the major.
The second, in E flat major,
is in ternary form, but with a B-like coda (ABAB'). The A section is a
moto-perpetuo of running triplets for the right hand; the contrasting B section
drops into a minor key and, approaching the return, it intriguingly combines
hints of the running triplet figure. The third,
a peaceful, lyrical, reassuring piece in G flat major (6 flats), was reissued
30 years later by the same publisher in G major (1 sharp; for amateur
players?)The fourth Impromptu, in A-flat major, is perhaps the most
famous of all Schubert's piano compositions. Its opening consists of cascading
arpeggios in the right hand, nowadays usually trivialized by being played too
fast in an attempt to bring out the left hand melody. It begins transiently in
A-flat minor, though this is written as A-flat major with accidentals. It is in
ternary form (ABA) with a calmer middle section. Was this set a sonata taken
apart? Probably not, as Schubert numbered his next 4 impromptus 5,6,7,8.
However, these 4 impromptus played in this order fit nicely together in mood
and key.

Three Piano Pieces, (Op. 90), D. 946 ――Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

Schubert died on 19th November 1828. Between
March and the beginning of November he wrote: the C major String Quintet, 3
piano sonatas, 2 piano duets (includning the profound Fantasie dedicated to the young countess Caroline Esterhazy), these
3 Klavierstücke, The Shepherd on the Rock, the Schwannengesang
songs, and 3 pieces of church music. It was doubtless the fugal writing of the
latter that prompted Schubert to turn up on 4th Nov with friend Lanz
on the doorstep of Simon Sechter's house for lessons in counterpoint. He missed
the second lesson on 10th, and took to his bed 4 days later,
fiddling still with the unsuccessful opera The
Count of Gleichen. So, a year that saw written much of his sublimest music.
These 3 Klavierstücke, written in
May, were published (by Brahms) in 1868. It seems likely that there were to be
4, but it is not clear whether they were to be Impromptus or Moments Musicaux,
nor even that they were conceived as a set. They are more complex in structure
than the preceding set of impromptus (e.g. the 1st is in what could
be called compound ternary form: A,B,A',C, D,E,A,B,A',C), they favour remote
keys (e.g. 6 and 7 flats), continuous triplets and repeated semiquavers or
tremolo effects; all typical of late Schubert. The firstis in E♭ minor and marked Allegro Assai. The second, in E♭ major is Allegretto.
The third is an Allegro in C major, in which it sounds
as though the left hand is behind the beat, but it is really the right hand
that is before the beat.

Sonata in D major, (Op. 53), D. 850 ――Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)

After Schubert's despair in 1824, 1825 was a relatively
happy year. He was solvent with Esterhazy guilders, and becoming known to
publishers and the musical world of Vienna. He spent from May till September in
the ravishing countryside of upper Austria with the retired opera singer Vogl
who was a native of that area, moving from place to place, singing and charming
as they went, welcomed and dined by the local big-wigs, and charmed in their
turn by the young ladies. But it was not all sight-seeing and letter-writing,
for Schubert composed his Great C major (9th) Symphony, the Walter Scott songs
(which include his Ave Maria), and
this D major sonata. For the last 3 weeks, paid for by a well-wisher, he and
Vogl stayed at the famous health spa of Bad Gastein (therapeutically
investigated by Paracelsus 300 years earlier); so this is called the Gasteiner
Sonata. Schubert's composer brother Ferdinand, when offering to sell it to
Diabelli after Schubert's death, distinguished it as a Grand Sonata; perhaps on
account of its length. It is, however, relatively light hearted, and in many
passages has an improvisatory feel. The 1st movement is vigorous; the long
andante (in A major), dreamy rather than sombre or painful; the scherzo,
rousing, with a sharply contrasted sweet trio section; the rondo almost cheeky
in the nursery-like simplicity of its recurring theme.

About Me

My Cawstein profile shows me struggling to understand politics, economics, and occasionally philosophy, commenting on the misuse of the English language and other perceived follies gaining currency in our times

Of course, this Cawstein only emerged when the web itself emerged. Before that there was neither the means of developing these characteristic ideas, nor the time. I suffered as a child the constraint of having to go to school. Then there were 45 years of disciplined application to a career in academic biochemistry (where my contributions lay in bioenergetics and membrane transport, chiefly in bacteria and mitochondria).